Class Reunion
by willowscribe
Summary: Fifteen years later, the 2018 class of Midtown School of Science & Technology has its class reunion. A lot can change in fifteen years. Gene Thompson knows this better than most.


**This work was originally intended to be an indulgent fluff piece where Flash has to see how wonderful and successful Peter & co. are as adults. It turns out, I can't write fun fluff, so this story grew a plot and a backstory of its own accord. (Also, I read somewhere that Flash was in the class above Peter. For our purposes, I will be ignoring that and saying they graduated together.)**

 **This story is cross-posted on AO3. As always, feedback is welcomed and cherished.**

 _Class Reunion_

Gene Thompson stirred his drink moodily, gazing listlessly across the hotel ballroom. He didn't want to be here anyway, but his father had insisted it would be a good networking opportunity. Gene had told him that he'd already blown his chance of having a good relationship with Peter back in high school, but his father had clapped him on the back and said, "Buck up, Eugene. It's been fifteen years. He'll have forgotten all about you."

Gene wasn't so sure. He leaned against the wall and watched Peter and his wife (Michelle, the weird one, who would have thought she'd land _Spider-Man_?) as they danced. Peter was a lot more graceful now than he was in high school, but Gene supposed that it had all been an act back then. After all, everyone in the room had seen the documentary a few years back celebrating Peter's 30th birthday and his 15th year of superhero-ing. They all knew the story of Peter's high school vigilante days.

Michelle said something to Peter then, which made Peter bend over and choke back laughter. A moment later, he stood back up and waved over the crowd at a large Filipino boy – Ned, if Gene remembered correctly. Ned had a beautiful, dark-skinned woman on his arm, and she held herself so regally that Gene was certain he had seen her on television somewhere.

He watched as the woman let go of Ned and threw herself into Peter's arms, and then into Michelle's, hugging them both tightly. His curiosity getting the better of him, Gene set his drink in a bus bin and began to make his way towards the group. He was still a little frightened of Peter, he had to admit, but his father was right about making connections with the right people tonight. Many of Gene's former classmates had gone on to be successes in their fields, but none more so than Peter Parker, head of R&D at Stark Industries, heir to the Stark empire, and an Avenger to boot. Michelle had done well for herself as well. Her Pulitzer Prize-winning exposé on the lack of legal protections and resulting unethical treatment of Inhumans in medical settings hung on Midtown's "Wall of Alumni" next to news clippings about her husband's heroic escapades.

Steeling himself, Gene maneuvered his way over to the foursome and tapped Peter on the shoulder. "Hey, um, Peter," he said awkwardly. "How's it going?"

Peter turned and the rest of his friends looked at him as well. Peter's eyebrows furrowed as he read Gene's nametag. "…Flash?" he said slowly.

Gene flushed at the memory of the old nickname. It was stupid then but it was even more ridiculous to be reminded of it now. "Er, yeah," he said, shuffling his feet awkwardly. The years hadn't been kind to him. While Peter had grown into his lanky limbs and sharp features, Gene had become more gaunt and sallow-skinned.

Michelle looked down at him disdainfully, standing taller than Gene in a pair of fabulous high heels. The Michelle that Gene remembered would never be caught dead in high heels, but this Michelle was the picture of elegance and poise. Then again, Michelle had worked directly under Pepper Potts as the head of Public Relations at Stark Industries for several years before she broke into investigative journalism, and Gene supposed a few things must have rubbed off on her. "Can we help you, Flash?" she said dryly.

"It's, er, it's Gene now," he said, scratching his head uncomfortably. "Flash was… kind of stupid, really. Hey, um, Ned, right?" he tacked on hastily, nodding towards the other man. "And who is this?"

The woman beside Ned stood up straighter. She exchanged a glance with Ned before extending the back of her hand to Gene. "I am Princess Shuri of Wakanda," she said coldly. "Daughter of Queen Mother Ramonda and the late King T'Chaka, sister of King T'Challa, bearer of the mantle of the Black Panther, and next in line to the throne of Wakanda. And who, exactly, are you?"

Gene grimaced. This had been such a mistake. He took Shuri's hand to shake, but when she didn't twist her palm to meet his, he swallowed his pride and bent to kiss the back of her hand. "I'm Eugene Thompson," he said quietly.

"Ah." Shuri sniffed haughtily. "And what brings you to visit with us, Eugene Thompson?"

Christ, this had been _such_ a bad idea. "Just, er, wanted to say hi," he managed. "Hey, Peter, can we talk?"

Peter's brows furrowed, and Gene watched as Peter and Michelle had a silent conversation before Peter turned back to Gene and said, "Yeah, sure. Let's walk." He put a hand on Gene's back and guided him away from the rest of the group, steering Gene effortlessly through the crowd. Gene didn't know if it was just because he was hyperaware of Peter's superhuman strength, but Peter's hand felt strong and threatening on his back.

They stepped out of the hotel ballroom and onto the mostly-empty terrace outside. Peter pulled Gene over to a secluded corner before turning and saying, "What is it, Thompson?"

Gene couldn't help but notice that Peter had positioned himself so that his back was to the wall and he had a clear line of sight in all other directions. Shaking himself, he started to speak. "I, um. Well, I wanted to apologize. For how I treated you in high school. It wasn't cool of me, and I know I was kind of a jerk –"

" _Kind of_?" Peter interrupted. " _Kind of_ a jerk?"

Gene huffed. " _Very much_ a jerk," he corrected. "I was terrible to you and Ned and Michelle, and I'm sorry."

Peter stared at him for a long moment, and Gene couldn't read what was happening behind Peter's eyes. After a long silence, Peter said, "Why are you telling me this now?"

Gene blinked. "What do you mean?"

Peter shrugged. "I mean, why tell me now, at our 15th reunion, instead of beforehand? It's not like I'm hard to reach." He smiled wryly. "In case you haven't noticed, I'm kind of a public figure now. You could have reached out any time. Why now?"

Gene sighed. He felt defeated. Why was this so much harder than his father had made it seem? "The time just never felt right," he said weakly.

Peter eyed him discerningly. "Eugene," he said, and Gene's head snapped up at the sound of his whole first name. "I know what happened with Oscorp."

Gene's shoulders slumped. "I'm sorry," he said softly, his voice hardly more than a whisper. "I didn't know about Norman, I swear I didn't. I thought… everything had gone to shit, and there he was, offering me a job. I didn't know about him. I swear to you, I didn't know what he was planning."

When Peter did nothing but stare at him, Gene felt the frustrated tears begin to well up inside of him. Blinking furiously, he turned from Peter and began to walk away. This was a bad idea, and he'd _known_ it was a bad idea, but frankly, this had been Gene's last hope. He had a bottle of whisky and a destitute father waiting for him at home, nothing more.

"Eugene." A hand clasped on his shoulder.

Gene stuttered to a halt. Slowly, he allowed Peter to turn him around. The man was looking at him with large, expressive eyes, and Gene had to force himself to hold back a flinch at the sight of pity in them. "Eugene, let's talk," Peter said quietly. "We can go back to the Tower. I'll let Michelle and them know."

Unable to move, unable to speak, Gene slowly nodded his assent. "Good," Peter said. "Stay here. I'll be right back."

A few minutes later, Peter returned from inside the ballroom. Gene allowed himself to be guided through the hotel lobby and out to the porte-cochere, where a balding man in a suit waited for them with a town car. "Hey Happy," Peter said to the man, who nodded curtly.

"Mister Parker-Jones," the man called Happy said politely.

"This is Eugene Thompson," Peter said, gesturing to his quarry. "We're going back to the Tower to talk for a little while. Can you drop us off and then swing back for MJ?"

"Absolutely," Happy replied, opening the door to the back seat and helping Peter inside. Peter slid his way across the back bench and gestured for Gene to join him. Carefully, Gene did so, breathing in the smell of clean leather. It had been a long time since he'd been in a car so nice. Not since Norman, and before that, not since high school.

"Hey Karen," Peter said as the car began to move. Gene glanced around but didn't see anyone else in the car until an electronic voice echoed from the speaker system.

"Yes, Peter?" the voice said politely.

"Let Tony know I'm coming back with a… guest. Former classmate. We'll be in my apartment; ask him not to interrupt."

Karen's modulated voice was bright with amusement. "Mister Stark says he'll try his best not to, but he makes no promises for Morgan."

"Tell Morgan that if she tries anything, I'll lock her out of the labs until she's forty."

"I'm not sure you have the authority to do that, Peter."

"Pepper will back me up."

A moment's pause. Then: "Message relayed."

"Thanks, Karen," Peter said with a sigh. Turning to Gene, he rolled his eyes and said, "Kids, huh? They're a handful."

"You have kids?" Gene managed to ask, trying to keep himself composed. Peter laughed.

"Oh no, not me. Morgan's my goddaughter. She's fifteen years old and a total menace."

Right, of course. Gene remembered now. Morgan Stark was the daughter of Tony and Virginia Stark. It only occurred to Gene as he mulled over this new information that he was going with Peter to Stark Tower, the place where Tony Stark himself lived. Where Peter and Michelle from his high school also lived. Where, until recently, Gwen Stacy had lived.

 _Christ._

The ride to Manhattan was short, and when they pulled into the Tower's parking garage, Gene had to forcibly hold back a swell of nausea in his mouth. Seemingly oblivious, Peter opened the car door and slid outside, thanking Happy as he did so. After a moment, Gene followed, nodding politely to the driver. Peter glanced at him oddly but didn't comment on it. "Come on," he said to Gene. "FRIDAY will take us up."

He guided Gene into an elevator with no buttons. "My floor, FRIDAY," Peter said to the ceiling, and the elevator began to move without any further prompting.

By the time they reached one of the highest floors in the building, Gene was seriously considering jumping out a window. He wanted nothing more than to avoid this conversation, but Peter was as calm and steadfast as ever. "Can I get you a drink?" he said politely when they stepped out of the elevator and into an open-concept living room with floor-to-ceiling windows.

Gene would have given anything for a drink just then, but he restrained himself. "No thank you," he said through a tight smile, seating himself on a pure white couch.

Peter shrugged and moved to sit in a white chair opposite Gene. "So," he said, "let's get to it. What do you want from me?"

Gene shifted in his seat. "I… I'm in a bad spot right now. I know you don't owe me anything and honestly, nothing I can say will make up for what happened, but…" He sighed. "You're a good person, Peter. Better than me. Better than most everyone. Can you help me?"

Peter eyed him thoughtfully. "Tell me about Norman," he said. "Why did you work for him?"

Oh, this had been such a mistake. Still, Gene opened his mouth to answer unbidden. "He was the only one who would give me a chance," he said despondently. "Once I got out of jail, no one would hire me. Most places don't trust an ex-con regardless of the crime." He shrugged. "I think Norman felt guilty. Or at least, that's what he wanted me to think."

"Why would he feel guilty?" Peter asked lightly.

Gene blinked. "Because of Harry. Didn't you know?"

"Harry Osborn?" Peter asked.

"The very same." Gene sighed and leaned back into the absurdly comfortable pillows. "I started dating him freshman year of college. We were both at Empire State. When my dad found out, well… he kind of disowned me. I mean, he took it back later, once he was broke and ill and needed me to take care of him, but at the time… I had to drop out of college. It was all a mess. Harry and I… we'd get trashed together, and one day…"

"The accident," Peter breathed.

"Yeah," Gene agreed. "The accident." At least Peter knew that much. To be fair, the very public death of Norman Osborn's only son and the following investigation had been front-page news for weeks.

"You were driving."

"No," Gene said sharply. "I wasn't. It was Harry."

Peter gazed at him, his dark eyes serious. "You weren't the driver?"

Gene blinked back the sudden tears he felt beginning to well up. "No. But Harry was dead, and I wasn't, and I had nowhere to go anyway, so I took the blame. Besides, it had been my idea to go out. We were both beyond obliterated, but I made the decision to go. I might as well have been driving."

"You went to jail for that."

"And I felt like I deserved it. I still do." Gene stared at his knees. "Once I got out, I couldn't find work. I was homeless and on the verge of doing something illegal just so I'd have a bed and some food back in prison. Then Norman found me. He said he knew that Harry had been the driver, and he owed me for saving his son's reputation – and by extension, his family legacy and Oscorp itself."

There was a long silence. Then, Peter shifted and stood up from his chair. Gene watched as Peter made his way over to the magnificent windows, gazing out at the evening cityscape beyond the glass panes. Not looking at him, Peter said to the glass, "Did you know?"

Gene couldn't even look at Peter's back. "I did," he said quietly. He glanced back up in time to see Peter clench his fists, still staring into his reflection in the window.

"Then why did you do it?"

It was a question that Gene had asked himself over and over again throughout the past several years. "I don't know," he replied. "I wish I did. Maybe it was a misplaced sense of loyalty, or maybe I was just an idiot, or maybe I was grateful that one person in the entire world seemed to think that my ideas were worth something. I mean, he bought out my dad's entire company just to fire him as revenge for him disowning me!" He bit his lip. "I was willfully blind. I suspected what Norman was going to do with the formula we developed, but I chose not to see it. That's on me."

For a long moment, Peter said nothing. Then, he turned back and faced Gene, eyeing him appraisingly. "Do you know why I'm like this?" he finally said.

Gene blinked. "What do you mean?"

Peter gestured to himself. "Spider-Man. The superpowers and all that."

"I… I don't know." Gene thought on it. "I guess I thought that you were an Inhuman since Michelle wrote so much about them."

Peter chuckled dryly. "That's what most people think. I don't bother to correct them. But no, I'm not an Inhuman. When we were fifteen, our class went on a field trip to Oscorp. Do you remember it? It feels like a century ago. I was curious and wandered into an area where I wasn't supposed to be, and I was bitten by one of Norman's experiments, a radioactive spider. It mutated my genetics and gave me these powers."

Gene couldn't think of anything to say. At his silence, Peter continued. "So you see, in a way, it was my fault too. I knew the kinds of experiments that Norman was getting up to, and I never pursued it. I knew for years, and I never did anything about it." Peter rubbed a hand over his face. "Norman would have developed the Green Goblin formula with or without you," he said blandly. "Do you know why he had you involved?"

Gene shook his head. After Gwen Stacy had died, he'd cut all ties with Norman and fled.

Peter smiled wryly. "You were his fall guy," he said. "After Tony and I raided Oscorp, we found the files on Norman's private servers. He wanted to adopt the Green Goblin persona permanently, and for that, Norman Osborn had to die. He'd planned on staging his own murder with you as the killer. He would have drugged you until you couldn't remember your own name and then set you up with all the evidence needed to convict you. No one would suspect it was faked because the perpetrator would have been caught."

Gene could feel his heartbeat in his throat. His hands were starting to shake, and he realized that he was hyperventilating. The buzzing feeling in his face and head got stronger and stronger, like a swarm of bees descending around his brain. He opened his mouth to speak, but he felt his vocal chords twist and spasm. A hot droplet of water landed on his hand, and Gene realized that he was sobbing. All the while, Peter stood by the window, watching him clinically, arms crossed and a neutral expression on his face.

When he finally got his breathing under control, Gene rasped out, "God, I am so, so sorry. I shouldn't have done this. I should just… go." He stood on wobbly legs and began to make his way back to the elevator that they'd come from.

"Eugene," Peter said, loudly but not aggressively. Gene froze in place. "Why did he pick Gwen?"

Gene shuddered. "Because her death hurt you and Tony Stark both," he said. "Two Avengers for the price of one."

"She was one of my best friends," Peter said from behind him. "She was Morgan's surrogate mother. She was a part of our family."

"Exactly," Gene said softly. He turned to face Peter, only a foot away from the elevator. "And nothing I ever do will help me atone for that."

"Eugene. Why did you want to talk to me tonight?"

Gene closed his eyes. "Because I need help. Because there's no one else left for me to ask."

Peter looked at him unblinkingly, as if trying to discern the truth of his words. After a moment, he said, "Anilsa from the 3rd floor employee cafeteria just transferred to the catering department. We haven't filled the position yet. It's not much, but –" He shrugged. "– it's something."

A job. Peter was offering him a job. It didn't matter what the job was – Gene would have gladly scrubbed toilets with a toothbrush. "When do I start?" he said, almost without thinking.

Peter gazed at him oddly before quirking a genuine smile. "You start Monday," he said with genuine warmth in his voice. "Tell the receptionist, and they'll send you to HR to fill out the paperwork then."

Before he could think better of it, Gene rushed forward and clasped Peter's hand. "Thank you," he said without an ounce of sarcasm in his tone. "Thank you, Spider-Man."

Peter laughed lightly. "We're not the same people we were in high school, huh?"

"No," Gene agreed. "A lot can happen in fifteen years."

Peter nodded. "Take care of yourself, Eugene. I'll see you Monday."


End file.
